Software has very little in common with literature, so what are you talking about?
The regulation I believe is necessary wouldn't require every programmer to be licensed and wouldn't require every commercial project to be insured and signed off by a licensed software engineer. So what would have prevented you from working in your current situation? Nothing.
It's no less personal an issue to me. My first programming job came to me when I was 17. I was paid more than either of my parents ever made to do something I liked doing (something I used to get yelled at for spending so much time doing...). I helped make gambling websites in the 90s before there was any regulation of such activities. I had no code of ethics and I probably helped enable more than a few addicts relieve themselves of their future prospects. Had there been a requirement that at least someone working on the team to be a licensed professional then at least someone had to be conscious of what we were doing.
Personally I don't trust corporate interested to decide what is ethical. As many programmers here have lamented if they didn't do it someone else would and now we're stuck with an industry whose sole purpose it to circumvent privacy protections in order to track behaviour online and sell it to the highest bidder.
Fortunately we do pretty well when writing flight control software. But it's not a good enough system when it comes to web services or trading services. Or a myriad of other things that can cause harm without risking lives.
I don't have the answers for how it should work. And as I said I suspect we'll be bad at it for a number of years. But that shouldn't be an excuse for not trying.
The regulation I believe is necessary wouldn't require every programmer to be licensed and wouldn't require every commercial project to be insured and signed off by a licensed software engineer. So what would have prevented you from working in your current situation? Nothing.
It's no less personal an issue to me. My first programming job came to me when I was 17. I was paid more than either of my parents ever made to do something I liked doing (something I used to get yelled at for spending so much time doing...). I helped make gambling websites in the 90s before there was any regulation of such activities. I had no code of ethics and I probably helped enable more than a few addicts relieve themselves of their future prospects. Had there been a requirement that at least someone working on the team to be a licensed professional then at least someone had to be conscious of what we were doing.
Personally I don't trust corporate interested to decide what is ethical. As many programmers here have lamented if they didn't do it someone else would and now we're stuck with an industry whose sole purpose it to circumvent privacy protections in order to track behaviour online and sell it to the highest bidder.
Fortunately we do pretty well when writing flight control software. But it's not a good enough system when it comes to web services or trading services. Or a myriad of other things that can cause harm without risking lives.
I don't have the answers for how it should work. And as I said I suspect we'll be bad at it for a number of years. But that shouldn't be an excuse for not trying.